Nov 07 NEC Meeting Minutes - Get `em while their hot!

[Lancer]

See Attached...then Come and Postulate.



Enjoy!

[CAPSGT]

This all seems to be in synch with what I have seen elsewhere, but do you have a source for these minutes?  They are not formatted as ones that came from NHQ, but rather ones that an individual who was there typed up as their own notes of what happened.

[RiverAux]

1.   Aircraft fleet size.
NEC voted to raise the current aircraft fleet size from 530 – 550 and tasked NHQ staff determine the financial feasibility of supporting the increase.

2.   Aircraft reporting hours.
Discussion ensued about eliminating the aircraft 200 hour minimum as a means of assignment/reassignment of aircraft.  To be discussed later.

I don't think those items were noted in any previous CAPTalk discussion about this meeting.  I like both ideas. 

[Lancer]

This all seems to be in synch with what I have seen elsewhere, but do you have a source for these minutes?  They are not formatted as ones that came from NHQ, but rather ones that an individual who was there typed up as their own notes of what happened.

These were distributed via a mail forward to our wing mailing list from our Wing CC.

[Psicorp]

Thanks!

Am curious to know if the Cadet PD stuff is retroactive.

[Lancer]

Thanks!

Am curious to know if the Cadet PD stuff is retroactive.

In all fairness, I can't imagine why it wouldn't be.

[CAPSGT]

1.   Aircraft fleet size.
NEC voted to raise the current aircraft fleet size from 530 – 550 and tasked NHQ staff determine the financial feasibility of supporting the increase.

2.   Aircraft reporting hours.
Discussion ensued about eliminating the aircraft 200 hour minimum as a means of assignment/reassignment of aircraft.  To be discussed later.

I don't think those items were noted in any previous CAPTalk discussion about this meeting.  I like both ideas. 

If NHQ can afford to buy more aircraft, I'm all for it.  I just hope that they don't buy all glass cockpits.  It'd be nice to keep some aircraft that are a bit less expensive to fly.

As for the 200 hour requirement, it's certainly not the ideal method for aircraft assignment, but at least it provides for some sort of initial benchmark for assigning aircraft to wings that need additional aircraft and would put them to use.

Take Delaware for example.  In 2005, they AVERAGED over 400 hours per aircraft with a fleet of 4.5 aircraft.  In 2007, they averaged just under 300 hours (still more than any other wing) with a fleet of 7.3 aircraft.  Clearly there is the demand there more than in some other wings.  I understand geographical considerations, but we still need to fly the aircraft if we are investing the money in them.  YMMV

[RiverAux]

I'm not sure it is a matter of buying new aircraft, but instead maintaining ones we already have.  I think for a while there we had something like 550-575 aircraft and were trying to sell off a bunch of older ones.  With the new 182s coming in they're probably looking for ways to justify moving around some of the existing aircraft rather than selling them off. 

The thing about flying hours is that it is hard to balance out our needs.  We could probably get tons more flying done if most of our planes were assigned to states where all the people are.  But, at the same time if you want a plane out in the rural area ready for SAR you just have to accept that they're probably not going to do as much regular flying because they will have fewer pilots and fewer cadets needing o-rides. 

[mikeylikey]

Thanks LANCER!

[Dustoff]

I just hope that they don't buy all glass cockpits.

Looking at the Cessna website, I don't think you can buy a new single-engine Cessna without a glass panel anymore.

(I heard this somewhere else also)

Jim

[Hawk200]

I just hope that they don't buy all glass cockpits.

Looking at the Cessna website, I don't think you can buy a new single-engine Cessna without a glass panel anymore.

From what I've seen this is pretty accurate. From what I understand, SC already has a couple of birds with glass cockpits. Will be interesting to see how this changes our pilot checkrides.